#Michigan state Senate

[geezerwench]

The Republicans are coming for your birth control next.

#Jacky Eubanks #Michigan state senate #stupid fucking republicans #birth control #reproductive rights #conservative christians #right to privacy #bodily autonomy

[bigbadbruin343]

A great victory for workers in Michigan!

#Washington Post #News #Michigan State Legislature #Michigan State Senate #Michigan Politics #Right to Work Law #Repealed #Michigan Dems aren't wasting this opportunity #Unions #Michigan

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Two Democratic state senators walked out of a committee hearing Tuesday in protest of a bill that critics say will prevent teachers from frankly discussing racism in classrooms.

Sens. Erika Geiss, D-Taylor, and Sen. Dayna Polehanki, who are both former teachers, said they refused to participate in the Senate Education and Career Readiness Committee, where Republicans were advocating the passage of House Bill 5097.

The bill, which passed the House in November, would prohibit schools from teaching any curriculum that includes the “promotion of any form of race or gender stereotyping or anything that could be understood as implicit race or gender stereotyping.”

In November, House Democrats walked out of a meeting after Republican leadership prevented Rep. Cynthia Johnson, D-Detroit, who is Black, from addressing the legislation.

“I’m tired of white legislators lecturing black people that the U.S. is post-racial and that things like ‘privilege’ or ‘oppression’ based on race no longer exist,” Polehanki, a former teacher, tweeted after walking out of the meeting. “These bills are designed to terrify teachers into avoiding any meaningful discussion about racial discrimination.”

The Michigan Civil Rights Commission in November passed a resolution opposing the legislation, saying it “provides for censorship for educators and gives students an inaccurate and incomplete account of the history of the United States.”

Geiss, who is Black and was an adjunct faculty member in the humanities at Wayne County Community College District, said the legislation “is remarkably not serious.”

“House Bill 5097 is not a serious bill from a serious person, and to entertain it devalues our work here as legislators and as former educators,” Geiss said in a statement. “This bill does nothing to address the pressing issues we have in education policy while wasting time and stirring up the hysterical conspiracy theorists of their base.”

The legislation is part of a growing movement by Republicans nationwide to prevent schools from teaching about the impact of systemic racism.

Polehanki added that the bill, introduced by Rep. Andrew Beeler, R-Port Huron, is an attempt by white lawmakers to falsely argue that “the United State is post-racial and that things like ‘privilege’ or ‘oppression’ based on race no longer exist.”

“Rep. Beeler’s bill is yet another in a long line of ‘happy history’ bills introduced by Republicans, which are designed to terrify teachers into avoiding any meaningful discussion about racial discrimination on pain of losing their jobs or causing school funding to be withheld,” Polehanki said in a statement.

#us politics #news #Detroit metro times #mi #michigan #Erika Geiss #state government #Dayna Polehanki #Senate Education and Career Readiness Committee #House Bill 5097 #racism #racists #Rep. Cynthia Johnson #Michigan Civil Rights Commission #Rep. Andrew Beeler #2022 #tweet #twitter #critical race theory

[xtruss]

Image: Getty Images

American Universities Have An Incentive To Seem Extortionate

They are much cheaper than the “Crisis of College Affordability” suggests

— July 23, 2023

The Cost of Many Private Colleges in America has reached $80,000 a year. The median household income in America in 2021 was $71,000 a year. This shows that college is unaffordable. Or does it?

The consensus view is that America has a college-affordability crisis and things are getting worse. According to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, “college costs are out of control”. Bernie Sanders, a senator from Vermont, and other progressives have pushed for free college and loan-forgiveness for years. The White House attempted a costly bail-out of student borrowers which the Supreme Court recently declared unconstitutional. Both sides are telling a similar, but mostly inaccurate, tale. Most undergraduate degrees in America are actually affordable, and in many cases going to college is getting cheaper.

There are three main types of colleges in America: public, non-profit private and for-profit private. Public colleges are much less expensive than private ones. According to us News & World Report, which ranks colleges, the average tuition fee for students at a public college studying in their home states is about $10,000, compared with nearly $40,000 for private colleges. And most American students benefit from these lower prices. In 2021, 77% of college students (about 12m) were enrolled in public colleges. Some states are cheaper than others. Tuition in Wyoming costs $6,000 per year for residents, whereas Vermont charges $19,000.

At first glance, public colleges in America look more expensive than most of their rich-country counterparts. America ranks second-highest for fees in the oecd, a club of mostly rich countries, behind England. However, this does not give a true picture.

American universities advertise a sticker price that few students actually pay. According to the National Association of College and University Business Officers, a non-profit organisation, private colleges discount tuition by over 50% on average. And contrary to the common narrative, the net cost (what students really pay) of public and private colleges has fallen.

Schools with large endowments are particularly generous. According to us News & World Report, the average student at Princeton University pays $16,600 for tuition and fees (compared with a $56,010 price tag), and tuition is free for families making $160,000 a year or less. With these tuition discounts, private colleges can sometimes cost less than public ones, though public colleges are usually cheaper.

Americans also have alternative paths to a four-year degree that can help them save money. Students can attend two-year public community colleges for less than the annual tuition cost of a four-year university degree. They can then apply those two years toward the four-year degree. The system is flexible: two-thirds of community-college students work and 70% attend part-time. This is an “interesting feature” of the American system that is less common in other countries, says Simon Roy of the oecd.

Though there are plenty of stories of students being landed with lots of debt for worthless degrees, college generally pays off. College-educated men earn $587,400 more over their lifetime than men who graduated from high school (women earn $425,100 more). This is much greater than the equivalent premium in Britain ($210,800 for men and $193,200 for women). “The expected gains from having a college degree are actually quite high in the us because the us is also one of the countries where income inequality is the highest,” says Abel Schumann of the oecd. This inequality makes college-going worth the initial cost for most people.

Why, then, is there a perception that there is some sort of general crisis in college affordability in America? One reason is that country-level comparisons, such as the analysis by the oecd, compare the sticker price of American universities with that of their peers. Sticker prices are rising while net costs remain steady and, in some cases, drop. A report from the College Board, a non-profit, shows that whereas published tuition and fees for private non-profit colleges increased from $29,000 in 2006-07 to $38,000 in 2021-22 (in 2021 dollars), the net price actually decreased from $17,000 to $15,000. The story is similar for public colleges. Published tuition and fees were nearly $8,000 in 2006-07 and rose to nearly $11,000 in 2021-22, but the net cost fell by $730.

This discrepancy between the sticker price and the net price creates confusion, but it continues because it is valuable to colleges, says Beth Akers of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank. Wealthy students pay the full price, subsidising their poorer peers. The higher prices are also good for marketing. Consumers tend to associate higher prices with higher quality. And students (and their boastful parents) are flattered by tuition markdowns pitched as merit scholarships rather than discounts.

Yet even with decreasing costs and with discounts, college can still feel unaffordable to many. Plenty of citizens in countries with free or low tuition (such as Denmark) do in fact pay for college. Instead of paying a tuition bill, they pay over time with high taxes. Americans pay less in taxes, but that lump-sum tuition bill can be frightening. For those students and their families unable to pay cash, loans can be an answer. But accrued interest can quickly turn a reasonable cost into an unreasonable one. This may change soon for federal-loan borrowers: a new initiative by the Biden administration will prevent interest from accruing on federal loans for people making timely payments.

College does not benefit everyone, and the quality is highly variable. For-profit colleges are notorious for providing little value and targeting poor and non-white students. And certain majors and occupations pay better than others. College dropouts do not get the benefit of the degree (though they do get to keep the debt). On average college is affordable and worth attending, but that does not mean that every individual benefits.

Regardless of the reality, American confidence in college is declining. A poll by Gallup released this month shows that only 36% of Americans have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education. This is down from 48% in 2018 and 57% in 2015. The perceived high cost of college could be driving down these results, says Jeremy Wright-Kim, an education professor at the University of Michigan. College may be relatively affordable and worth the overall cost, but Americans are struggling to believe it.■

#United States 🇺🇸 #Sticker Shocker #American Universities #Crisis #Affordability #College #Private Colleges #Heritage Foundation #Senator Bernie Sanders #Public Colleges #National Association of College and University Business Officers #Gallup Survey #Jeremy Wright-Kim #University of Michigan

[8241991]

perhaps i'm huffing copium and hopium but this idea that abortion isn't an issue for independent voters and that it's not a driving issue for constituents is insane. we've had how many special elections now that were either ballot initiatives for abortion or candidates who were judged based on their opinions of abortion since dobbs that have seen MASSIVE voter turnouts even in red states like Kansas and Montana. the fight is not over yet by a long shot but even more moderate republicans are stating that the party's stance on abortion is a losing game for them. they wouldn't admit this to themselves if it wasn't the truth, lmfao.

#plenty of women specifically who didn't vote in previous years registered to vote in 2022. democrats were not projected to make major wins #during the 2022 midterms and while we lost the HOR that's not impossible to get back considering republicans only have a 9 seat majority #we kept the senate and democrat governors have been elected in multiple states like arizona #michigan has a dem trifecta! #what i'm saying is we can do this and i believe caution is necessary but we have to continue the momentum #nothing is earned when we decide that it's over and there's no winning #hell look at the wisconsin supreme court race. come on. i feel like it should be a little bit more obvious. 2016 was scary and awful #but plenty of people who grew up to see the fuck ups in a post trump presidency america are able to vote now and are motivated.

[phoenixyfriend]

Michigan just gave us the rhetorical weapon that could push Biden and the DNC to turn their backs on Israel.

Okay so this is amazing news. Michigan was going to be a key state in the push to get Biden, and the DNC as a whole, to start pressuring Israel, and they have just proven that they have that power.

Background: Michigan is a swing state, and it has 16 votes in the electoral college. Winning Michigan was a major factor in Biden's win back in 2020, and much of that rested on the Arab-American vote. It was also a major factor in Hillary Clinton's loss to Donald Trump in 2016. She lost the state by ten thousand, seven hundred votes.

Praxis: For obvious reasons, Arab-Americans are incredibly upset with Biden's support for Israel, and support in that demographic has gone from 59% in the 2020 election to less than 17% now. As a form of protest, Arab-Americans in Michigan started a campaign to get voters to check "uncommitted" in the Democratic primary. This is an actual box that can be checked, though some less-organized pushes also suggested writing in 'ceasefire' like New Hampshire primary voters did.

The goal was to get at least 10,000 'uncommitted' votes, as that is how many Hillary lost by.

As Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, the first Arab mayor of this majority-Arab city, said:

"We're not sizable enough to make a candidate win, but we're sizable enough to make a candidate lose."

(Source: NPR, 2/25/24)

Result:

As of 10:49 PM EST, 2/27, there are thirty-nine thousand uncommitted votes, according to CNN, which is doing live coverage.

NPR was reporting 30k at 10:14.

As a caveat, New York Times is saying that each of the last three Michigan Dem Primaries had about 20k uncommitted votes, so the 35k isn't all the push for pro-Palestine stances in Congress, but that's still a jump of almost 20k, which is way, way more than the goal.

And they aren't done counting the votes yet. Barely 30% of votes are in. The goal has been blown out of the water.

Other states are reaching out for advice on how to replicate the results.

This is big news.

So can we relax?

Fuck no.

Do what Michigan did. Vote in the Dem primary, and vote uncommitted or write in "ceasefire."

But on a more daily basis, if you have a Democratic candidate, lean on this.

Tell them it will be repeated elsewhere.

This could very well lose the election for Biden and more. The Democrats can't afford another four years of Trump, and they know it. The loss of Michigan can and will tank this election for them, especially since other states that helped Biden win, like Georgia, were also won on demographics that are growing increasingly upset by the situation in Gaza.

Go to the Michigan section of this post and use that in your calls and emails.

But remember. Call your reps. Call your senators. Call your governor, if you'd like. And if they're a Democrat, you bring this up. Be polite, the staffer isn't making these decisions. They might just be an intern. But bring it up and tell them that we are going to lose the presidency if we do not sanction Israel and actually pressure them into not only pulling out of Gaza and the West Bank, but paying reparations.

#michigan #united states #michigan primary #primary voting #democratic primary #current events #phoenix politics #voting #praxis #politics #pro palestine #gaza #palestine #israel #2024 election

[reasonsforhope]

"For the first time in almost 60 years, a state has formally overturned a so-called “right to work” law, clearing the way for workers to organize new union locals, collectively bargain, and make their voices heard at election time.

This week, Michigan finalized the process of eliminating a decade-old “right to work” law, which began with the shift in control of the state legislature from anti-union Republicans to pro-union Democrats following the 2022 election. “This moment has been decades in the making,” declared Michigan AFL-CIO President Ron Bieber. “By standing up and taking their power back, at the ballot box and in the workplace, workers have made it clear Michigan is and always will be the beating heart of the modern American labor movement.”

[Note: The article doesn't actually explain it, so anyway, "right to work" laws are powerful and deceptively named pieces of anti-union legislation. What right to work laws do is ban "union shops," or companies where every worker that benefits from a union is required to pay dues to the union. Right-to-work laws really undermine the leverage and especially the funding of unions, by letting non-union members receive most of the benefits of a union without helping sustain them. Sources: x, x, x, x]

In addition to formally scrapping the anti-labor law on Tuesday [February 13, 2024], Michigan also restored prevailing-wage protections for construction workers, expanded collective bargaining rights for public school employees, and restored organizing rights for graduate student research assistants at the state’s public colleges and universities. But even amid all of these wins for labor, it was the overturning of the “right to work” law that caught the attention of unions nationwide...

Now, the tide has begun to turn—beginning in a state with a rich labor history. And that’s got the attention of union activists and working-class people nationwide...

At a time when the labor movement is showing renewed vigor—and notching a string of high-profile victories, including last year’s successful strike by the United Auto Workers union against the Big Three carmakers, the historic UPS contract victory by the Teamsters, the SAG-AFTRA strike win in a struggle over abuses of AI technology in particular and the future of work in general, and the explosion of grassroots union organizing at workplaces across the country—the overturning of Michigan’s “right to work” law and the implementation of a sweeping pro-union agenda provides tangible evidence of how much has changed in recent years for workers and their unions...

By the mid-2010s, 27 states had “right to work” laws on the books.

But then, as a new generation of workers embraced “Fight for 15” organizing to raise wages, and campaigns to sign up workers at Starbucks and Amazon began to take off, the corporate-sponsored crusade to enact “right to work” measures stalled. New Hampshire’s legislature blocked a proposed “right to work” law in 2017 (and again in 2021), despite the fact that the measure was promoted by Republican Governor Chris Sununu. And in 2018, Missouri voters rejected a “right to work” referendum by a 67-33 margin.

Preventing anti-union legislation from being enacted and implemented is one thing, however. Actually overturning an existing law is something else altogether.

But that’s what happened in Michigan after 2022 voting saw the reelection of Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a labor ally, and—thanks to the overturning of gerrymandered legislative district maps that had favored the GOP—the election of Democratic majorities in the state House and state Senate. For the first time in four decades, the Democrats controlled all the major levers of power in Michigan, and they used them to implement a sweeping pro-labor agenda. That was a significant shift for Michigan, to be sure. But it was also an indication of what could be done in other states across the Great Lakes region, and nationwide.

“Michigan Democrats took full control of the state government for the first time in 40 years. They used that power to repeal the state’s ‘right to work’ law,” explained a delighted former US secretary of labor Robert Reich, who added, “This is why we have to show up for our state and local elections.”"

-via The Nation, February 16, 2024

#michigan #united states #us politics #labor #labor rights #labor unions #capitalism #unions #unionize #gretchen whitmer #democrats #voting matters #right to work #pro union #workers #workers rights #good news #hope

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #3

Jan 26-Feb 2 2024

The House overwhelmingly passed a tax deal that will revive the expanded Child Tax Credit, this will effect 16 million American children and lift 400,000 out of poverty in the first year. The deal also supports the building of 200,000 housing units over the next two years, and provides tax relief for communities hit by disasters.

The Biden Administration has begun negotiations on drug prices for Medicare. Earlier this year the administration announced it would negotiate for the first time directly with drug manufacturers on the prices of 10 common medications. This week they sent their opening offers to the companies. The program is expected to save Medicare and enrollees billions over dollars over the long term and help push down drug prices for everyone.

The Department of Transportation has green lit $240 Million to modernize air ports across the country. Air Ports in 37 states will be able to get much needed updates and refurbishment.

The Biden Administration announced 10 sites across America as sites for innovation investment. They will receive up to 2 billion dollars each over the next 10 years. The goal is to stimulate economic growth and innovation in semiconductor manufacturing, clean energy, sustainable textiles, climate-resilient agriculture, regenerative medicine, and more.

The State Department reviews options for recognizing Palestinian Statehood. While as of yet there's been no policy change this review of options is a major shift in US diplomatic thinking which has long opposed Palestinian Statehood and shows a seriousness of reported Biden plans to push for Statehood as part of a post-war Israel-Saudi normalization deal.

President Biden imposes sanctions on Israeli settlers who have engaged in violence against Palestinians and peace activists. This marks the first time the US has leveled sanctions against Israelis and sets up a standard that could see the whole settlement movement cut off from the US financial system

the Department of Energy has tentatively agreed to a $1.5 Billion dollar loan to help reopen a Michigan nuclear power plant. This would mark the first time a closed nuclear plant has been brought back online. Closed in 2022 it's hoped that it could reopen in time to be generating power in late 2025. This is part of Biden's plan to decarbonize the electricity grid by 2035.

the Internal Revenue Service launched a program to allow tax fillers file for free directly with the government. In 2024 its a pilot program limited to 12 states, but plans for it to be nation wide by tax day 2025

The Department of Health and Human Services announced $28 million in grants to help with the treatment of substance use disorder, including a program aimed at pregnant and postpartum women, and expanded drug court aimed at directing people into treatment and out of the criminal justice system.

The Department of Energy announced $72 million for 46 hydroelectric projects across 19 states. This marks the single largest investment in Hydropower in US history.

The Senate confirmed President Biden's 175th federal judge. Biden has now appointed more federal judges in his first term in office than President Obama did in his, however still lags behind Trump's 186 judges. For the first time in history a majority of a President's nominees are not white men, 65% of them are women and 65% are people of color, President Biden has appointed more black women to judgeships than any administration in history.

#Joe Biden #Thanks Biden #good news #us politics #politics #Democrats #Poverty #Climate change #nuclear power #Israel #israeli settlers #Palestine #israel palestine conflict

[larkandkatydid]

LANSING, Mich. — Democrats in Michigan pressed ahead with a torrent of liberal measures on Wednesday, the boldest assertion yet of their new political power since taking full control of state government this year for the first time in four decades.

In the course of a single afternoon and evening, and despite loud objections from many Republicans, the Michigan House of Representatives voted to repeal a right-to-work law loathed by labor unions, expand background checks for gun purchases and enshrine civil rights protections for L.G.B.T.Q. people in state law. On the other side of the Capitol, the State Senate voted to repeal an abortion ban that is unenforceable but still on the books. Some of the legislation must still be voted on in the other chamber, and all of it would have to be signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, to take effect

The rapid-fire votes were possible only because Michigan Democrats narrowly won a trifecta — control of both legislative chambers and the governor’s office — in last year’s election after spending much of the prior decade on the lawmaking sidelines.

#lets goooo

[wilwheaton]

Current data debunks the conventional wisdom that younger Americans don’t vote (and therefore can be ignored). Young voters turned out where it mattered most in 2022, namely in swing states with competitive races. The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tuft University’s post-2022 election study found that youth turnout in Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon and Pennsylvania exceeded 32 percent. Atrocious turnout rates below 20 percent in states such as Alabama, Indiana, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia dragged down the national youth turnout rate. The significance of the youth vote shouldn’t be underestimated. “If the elections had been decided by voters 45 and older, Republicans would have won the House by an even greater margin and likely taken the Senate,” polling analyst John Della Volpe wrote in the New York Times after the election.

Tennessee's expulsion of two lawmakers might reshape politics - The Washington Post

If America is going to be saved from Fascism, we will have Zoomers and Millennials to thank for it.

I’m just one Old, but I’m here to support y’all. Just tell me where the barricade is and I’ll show up.

[socialistexan]

Honestly, if I were a liberal or a Democratic insider, I would be sounding a million alarms on Biden running a second term and trying to prevent what will probably an absolute disaster.

Right now, by 538's poll aggregate (take from that what you will), Joe Biden's approval is currently - as of December 4th, 2023 - is 37.9%. I want y'all to understand how abysmal that is.

No President since Jimmy Carter, has been that low this long into their term in office, not even Trump. By this point Carter had rebounded from 29.4% in June of 1979 to 44.9% in January, and he still got steamrolled by Reagan the next year.

Trump's lowest point? 35.6%, but that was during the initial backlash he received in his first year in office, around June of 2017. On election night 2020? Trump was at 41.5%, and most people thought it was probably a slam dunk he loses. Currently Trump is sitting at 42.2% approval, and he's trending upwards, while Biden is trending down.

Most Presidents have periods where their support craters, usually near their first mid-term, it happened to Obama, Clinton, and Reagan, but what those 3 have in common is that they started rebuilding their support base to rally for the next election, not torpedoing some of his key constituencies in key swing states (Arab American voters in Michigan for example, where they have a large enough population to swing the state in a close election) and telling them to fuck off we don't need you.

This is a disaster waiting to happen. There's every possibility the Democrats win the House and Senate, but Biden gets crushed.

[zvaigzdelasas]

28 Jun 23

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

Republicans are liars, racists, and criminal sacks of feces.

#republican assholes #maga morons #racist republicans #Matthew Maddock #republican family values #republican values #never trump #resist #traitor trump #crooked donald #traitor #republican hypocrisy

[robertreich]

The First Step to Fixing the Electoral College

Should someone else's vote count more than yours?

For 80% of Americans, that’s exactly what’s happening. Their vote for president isn’t nearly as valuable as the vote of someone in a so-called “swing state.” Why?

Most of us live in states that have become so predictably Democratic or Republican that we’re taken for granted by candidates. Presidential elections now turn on the dwindling number of swing states that could go either way, which gives voters in those states huge leverage.

The 2020 election came down to just over 40,000 votes spread across just three swing states.

2016 came down to fewer than 80,000 votes also across three states.

In those elections, the national popular vote wasn’t that close. In fact, in the last five elections, the winners of the popular vote beat their opponents by an average of 5 million votes.

The current state-by-state, electoral college system of electing presidents is creating ever-closer contests in an ever-smaller number of closely divided states for elections that aren’t really that close.

Not only that, but these razor-thin swing state margins can invite post-election recounts, audits, and lawsuits — even attempted coups. A losing candidate might be able to overturn 40,000  votes with these techniques. Overturning 5 million votes would be nearly impossible.

The current system presents a growing threat to the peaceful transition of power.

It also strips us of our individual power. If you’re a New York Republican or an Alabama Democrat, presidential candidates have little incentive to try and win your vote under the current system. They don’t need broad popular support as much as a mobilized base in a handful of swing states. Campaigning to a smaller and more radical base is also leading to uglier, more divisive campaigns.

And it’s become more and more likely that candidates are elected president without winning the most votes nationwide. It’s already happened twice this century.

Now, fixing the Electoral College should be the ultimate goal. But this requires a constitutional amendment — which is almost impossible to pull off because it would need a two-thirds vote by Congress plus approval by three-quarters of all state legislatures.

But, in the meantime, there’s an alternative — and it starts with getting our states to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Don’t let that mouthful put you off. It could save our democracy.

This compact would guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes nationwide WITHOUT a constitutional amendment.

How does it work?

The Constitution assigns each state a number of electors equal to its number of representatives and senators. As of now, the total number of electors is 538. So anyone who gets 270 or more of those Electoral College votes becomes president.

Article 2 of the Constitution allows state legislatures to award their electors any way they want.

So all that’s needed is for states with a total of at least 270 electoral votes to agree to award all their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote.

The movement to do this is already underway. 15 states and the District of Columbia have joined the compact, agreeing that once enough states join, all their electoral votes will go to the popular vote winner.

Together, states in the compact have 195 electoral votes. So we just need a few more states with at least 75 electors to join the compact and it’s done.

Popular vote laws have recently been introduced in Michigan [15 electors] and Minnesota [10 electors], which if passed, would bring the total to 220.

Naturally, this plan will face legal challenges. There are a lot of powerful interests who stand to benefit by maintaining the current system.

But if we keep up the fight and get enough states on board, America will never again elect a president who loses the national popular vote. No longer would 80 percent of us be effectively disenfranchised from presidential campaigns. And a handful of votes in swing states would no longer determine the winner — inviting recounts, audits, litigation, and attempted coups that threaten our democracy.

If you want to know more or get involved, click this link to read about the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

If your state is not already a member, I urge you to contact your state’s senators and reps to get your state on board.  

#youtube #Donald trump #electoral college #politics #election #vote #video #videos

[palestinegenocide]

Biden is ‘pristine’ on Israel, says megadonor Haim Saban

We’ve reached the point where Everything that Joe Biden and his mouthpieces say about the Gaza war is a lie.

They say that they deplore civilian deaths in Gaza, and yet they send more money for Israeli munitions and block any effort to hold Israel back, “casting international humanitarian law to the winds.” And when they are pressed about this, Biden’s surrogate Nancy Pelosi says that no American arms have gone to kill Palestinian civilians.

They say that Israel has a strategy to defeat Hamas. It has no strategy. (Even the liberal Zionists admit.) It has only rage and anguish, at the highest level.

They say that this war has given hope to the two-state solution. This is the talking point from Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Chris Coons, Martin Indyk, Tom Friedman, J Street and the State Department. But Netanyahu is dead set against a Palestinian state.

So they say that the problem is Netanyahu – he’s the “pinchpoint,” Senator Coons says — but the Israeli Knesset voted overwhelmingly this week to oppose a Palestinian state.

They say that Biden has argued with Netanyahu about the embarrassing fact that Israel is wantonly killing 10s of thousands of Palestinian civilians. But there is actually No diversity in Israeli leadership over collective punishment, smashing Gaza to bits and mass murder and ethnic cleansing. Over 2/3 of Jewish Israelis oppose humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The State Department and Tom Friedman declare we are just trying to keep alive the dream of normalizing Israel with Arab autocracies so as to spread peace through the bad neighborhood of the Middle East. But Saudi Arabia says it won’t dream of such a thing till Palestinians have sovereignty. And everyone knows that a chief cause of the horrific Hamas attacks on Israeli families in their homes was that the international community was taking Palestinians for granted.

It’s all lies, because Biden knows that the truth will just hurt him. All of America, even evangelicals, are for a ceasefire. Michigan progressives are deserting Biden. The rage is “unprecedented,” even the NY Times says. “The chorus of voices from foreign capitals has grown thunderous in recent days… “

Biden and his friends tell these lies for a simple reason that I talk about to the point of boredom (because so few talk about it). He needs the Israel lobby on his side, way more than he thinks he needs Michigan progressives.

This week Biden had a fundraiser in L.A. co-hosted by Haim Saban – whose only issue is Israel – and a vice-chairman of the ADL— which says that to oppose Zionism makes you an antisemite. Ticket prices, $3,000 to $250,000.

And as Saban told TheWrap, Biden is “pristine” on Israel in these “dire times.”

He’s paying a political price… There’s never been a president as supportive in facts, not only in words, of Israel… [M]ost specifically, in these dire times for Israel, he’s been pristine.

Without the U.S., Israel would be fighting with “sticks and stones.”

These lines from the leading Democratic donor should have been on our airwaves and leading papers. But no, this is a scandal in plain sight because it would just feed the claim that pro-Israel Jews have outsize political influence in the U.S., which everyone knows anyway. And by the way, a PR firm with close links to the White House is an attack dog against journalists who say a kind word about Palestinians.

Biden is pristine because the American Jewish community and Israel are deluded about Israel.

They believe Israel is a robust democracy. No, it is a robust apartheid state– all the human rights organizations affirm– a Jewish supremacist state in which Palestinians have second-class and no-class rights– an order that Palestinians will reject, by any means.

So today Israel perpetrates a likely genocide against those people, killing nearly 30,000 Palestinians, most of them trapped civilians.

And Biden is pristine in his support of this slaughter because he needs political backing in the U.S.

Back in 2015, Obama said that only Israel in all the world was against the Iran deal and it would be an “abrogation” of his constitutional duty if he went with Israel.

Today all the world but Israel wants the slaughter to end, and Biden is abrogating his constitutional duty so as to be pristine in support of Israel.

The difference between Obama and Biden is that Obama was in his second term and could take a stand against the tail wagging the dog. Biden is in his first and cannot. So he and everyone around him just lies.

Thanks for reading,

#israel #free gaza #gazaunderattack #israel is a terrorist state #gaza strip #gaza #genocide #free palestine #jerusalem #palestine #tel aviv #west bank #rafah #news #palestine news

[phoenixyfriend]

I would advise listening to this podcast all the way through:

There is a section where they talk about how, while pro-ceasefire progressives are loud, they are low in number. The two statistics given are an opinion poll in Pennsylvania about how a pro-Israel stance has actually benefited one of the Senators, and the New Hampshire democratic primary.

In the NH primary, Biden was not on the ballot, for complicated Democratic infighting reasons about which state gets to host the first primary. He nonetheless won the state with about 64%, because people wrote in with his name.

There was also a campaign, a loud one, to get people to write in "ceasefire." It got under 1,500 votes.

Biden got over 77,000. As a write-in candidate.

"But the primary didn't matter!"

Sure, in terms of actual impact on delegates, but look. People are using it as evidence that the people begging for a ceasefire are louder than they are numerous. Shouting, but only a handful.

Abstaining does nothing, even in the primaries.

Hopefully, Michigan will change that, but we cannot rely on one blue-wall state to make a case for all of us.

Do not just shout online. Even in-person protests won't do much when it's a small handful of people each time, because What If It's The Same Five People. That's only five votes, right?

But what if you vote, and tell them you disapprove?

What if you call in, tell your Senator and House Rep that you may not vote for them if this continues, and they match your name and address to a database and find that yes, you DO have a vote you can withhold?

I know I'm a broken record, but PLEASE call your reps.

I'll even help you figure out what to say.

#Spotify #current events #npr #Israel #Gaza #Hamas #Palestine #united states #Phoenix politics